1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to socket-type electrical meters, and, more particularly, to a system which provides power quality and revenue metering information to remote locations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electric utility companies (xe2x80x9cutilitiesxe2x80x9d) track electric usage by customers by using power meters. These meters track the amount of power consumed at a particular location. These locations range from power substations, to commercial businesses, to residential homes. The electric utility companies use the power meter to charge its customers for their power consumption, i.e. revenue metering.
A popular type of power meter is the socket-type power meter. As its name implies, the meter itself plugs into a socket for easy installation, removal and replacement. Other meter installations include panel mounted, switchboard mounted, and circuit breaker mounted. Typically the power meter connects between utility power lines supplying electricity and a usage point, namely a residence or commercial place of business. Though not typical, a power meter may also be placed at a point within the utility""s power grid to monitor power flowing through that point for distribution, power loss, or capacity monitoring. Also, power meters can be used to monitor internal customer usage, that handle submetering functions.
Traditionally, power meters used mechanical means to track the amount of consumed power. The inductive spinning disk power meter is still commonly used. The spinning disk drives mechanical counters that track the power consumption information.
Newer to the market are electronic power meters. Electronic meters have replaced the older mechanical meters, and utilize digital sampling of the voltage and current waveforms to generate power consumption information. In addition to monitoring power consumption, electronic meters can also monitor and calculate power quality, that is, voltage, current, real power, reactive power, and apparent power, among others. These power quality measurements and calculations are displayed on an output display device on the meter.
In more recent developments, limited power consumption information can be transmitted from the power meter to the utility through the use of telephone communications circuitry contained either within or external to the meter. These developments are advantageous to the utility company in that it reduces the need for employees being dispatched to the remote locations to collect the power consumption information. A standard modem receives raw power consumption information from the power meter and transmits the information to the utility company via telephone lines. While this represents an improvement over past techniques, this information then must be interpreted and further processed to calculate the amount of power consumption, a secondary process that results in further processing apparatus and software, and further resulting in increases to the costs and complexities of the overall system.
There is therefore a need for an electronic power meter that can process raw power consumption information. There is a further need for an electronic power meter that can make available processed power consumption information to multiple end users. And a still further need exists for an electronic power meter that provides processed power information to multiple users in a format that is easily viewed and interpreted by an end user.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an electronic power meter that processes raw power consumption information.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic power meter that makes available processed power consumption information to multiple end users.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an electronic power meter that makes available processed power consumption information to multiple end users in a format that is easily viewed and interpreted by an end user.
The present invention is an electric power meter providing real time revenue calculations as well as power quality metering. The power meter actively updates a number of users over the Internet in real time. A user can be utility personnel or customers. The power meter is also capable of communicating through several ports using several different communication protocols simultaneously. The interfaces, including web pages, are user definable and configurable. The meter is installable as a socket type meter, a panel mounted meter, a switchboard mounted meter, or a circuit breaker meter.
In one embodiment of the present application, a web server provides real time data through an Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or Extensible Markup Language (XML) interface. Additionally, the web server allows viewing of stored historical and power quality data and provides users with an interface for retrieval of historical data via industry standard protocols including Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP).
In another embodiment of the present invention, the web server operates as a Modbus Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Gateway for the power meter and existing serial based devices that connect through a network serial port to allow data be monitored or transferred via a network infrastructure.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, a socket-type electric power meter provides concurrent operation of a web server, Modbus TCP and additional protocols which are supported by the power meter, thus allowing the power meter to be easily incorporated into existing power control systems as well as providing access to real-time web information, such as the revenue calculations, metering data and power quality data, using a standard web browser.